Tom Clancy tours the Yorktown, a U.S. battle cruiser off the coast of Norfolk, Va. The best-selling author died Oct. 1 at 66. / Joe McNally Getty Images

by Bob Minzesheimer , USA TODAY

by Bob Minzesheimer , USA TODAY

Novelist Tom Clancy, who died Tuesday night at the age of 66, was a former insurance salesman who never served in the military, CIA or FBI.

But with help of a few friends who did, Clancy mesmerized millions of readers with well-researched thrillers in which he described weapons down to their cylinder bore.

His publisher, Putnam, said Clancy died at a Baltimore hospital but didn't release a cause of death.

The best of Clancy's novels, including his 1984 debut, The Hunt for Red October, about the defection of the Soviets' most advanced submarine, pulsed along like the latest nuclear-powered sub.

His re-occurring and self-effacing hero, Jack Ryan -- played by Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, and Ben Affleck in movie adaptations -- rose from a CIA analyst to national security adviser to vice president, and eventually president.

Four of the Ryan novels -- Red October, as well as Patriot Games (1987), Clear and Present Danger (1989) and The Sum of All Fears (1991) -- were adapted as films that grossed about $800 million globally.

With video games and other spin-offs, Clancy became a brand-name with a host of collaborators. His publisher says there are more than 100 million copies of his books in print.

Along with the late Michael Crichton, Clancy popularized the concept of the techno-thriller, a page-turner starring technology that was almost as important as the characters.

"I'm a technology freak," he told USA TODAY in 1987. "Everyone likes toys -- and the military has the best toys."

Crichton was more interested in science. Clancy, who said he never had access to government secrets, took readers inside worlds they knew about mostly from the news: military espionage, terrorism and counter-terrorism.

Clancy made the Cold War and its aftermath thrilling to readers. But he left few doubts that eventually the good guys (the Americans) would triumph.

Clancy's debut, The Hunt for Red October, was originally published by the Naval Institute Press, which bought it for $5,000 as its first novel.

Someone got a copy to first lady Nancy Reagan, who passed it on to President Reagan, who declared it "my kind of yarn" and "unputdownable." That helped drive Clancy up the best-seller lists. Soon after he gave up his insurance practice.

Clancy, a conservative Republican, was invited to run for office himself, but he never did.

He told USA TODAY in 2002 that he was having too much fun and making too much money writing books and creating spin-offs like Tom Clancy's Op-Center, a series of books (adapted as a NBC miniseries) that he acknowledged were written by his collaborator Jeff Rovin. His defense: "George Lucas didn't write all the Star War books. Gene Roddenberry didn't write all the Star Trek books."

As a novelist, Clancy was "ahead of the news curve and sometimes frighteningly prescient," says Ivan Held, president and publisher of Putnam.

"He interjected completely plausible --- but chilling --- scenarios into everyday settings," says Carol Fitzgerald, president of the Book Report Network, websites about books and authors. "Readers would always end up thinking, 'What if?'"

Clancy's 1994 novel, Debt of Honor, ends with a rogue Japanese pilot crashing a 747 into the Capitol as the president addresses a joint session of Congress. The crash kills the president and most of Congress -- a fictional climax that was cited after the 9/11 terrorism attacks.

But Clancy told USA TODAY in 2002 he never could have imagined the real-life horrors of 9/11: "I never saw it coming," he said. "I couldn't stretch my brain that far."

He did imagine one suicidal pilot, but "not suicide as a team effort."

He said he was no expert on terrorism: "I'm just an observer. The real experts are the guys in green suits carrying a gun." (His near-sighted eyes kept him out of the military.)

Clancy had seven No. 1 USA TODAY best sellers, either solo or with a co-author, and 52 books in the top 150, solo or with a co-author or "created by."

A new Jack Ryan novel -- Command Authority, co-written with Mark Greaney, about a new leader in Russia with a dark secret â?? is to be released on Dec. 3. A fifth film adaptation, Jack Ryan, is due out in December.

On Wednesday, novelist Pat Conroy called Red October "one of the great page turners of our time," adding that Clancy "was my father's favorite novelist, maybe the only novelist we ever discussed."

Donald Conroy, a Marine Corps fighter pilot who served as the model for the abusive father in his son's 1976 novel The Great Santini, "loved how Clancy got into all the military intricacies."

"I'd say, 'Dad, I don't think Tom was actually in the military.' And he'd say, 'Yeah, but he cares about the military and about getting all the details right -- unlike my son.' "

Clancy is survived by his wife, Alexandra; their daughter, Alexis; and four children from a previous marriage to Wanda King, Michelle Bandy, Christine Blocksidge, Kathleen Clancy and Thomas Clancy III.